Past Defenses
by S'revan
Summary: Because it's possible to be both a ninja and a lover. IruKaka, Iruka centric.


Because it's possible to be both a ninja and a lover. IruKaka.

**Past Defenses**

Iruka is a chuunin by choice. He could have taken the exam to become a jounin years ago, and passed it easily, but he never did. He loves his home and his job and the steady source of income, he loves the children and teaching them how to be what they are.

Sandaime was very well aware that Iruka was holding himself back. It had pleased him, and when he died and Tsunade became Godaime and found out for herself, she was pleased as well. After all, the Hokage stays in the village to protect it, and Iruka was refusing himself promotion in order to protect the school. He's a generous man with a strong sense of duty, and an excellent ninja as well.

Iruka likes to make sure that his students still do well even after they graduate. He goes and talks to all the new team leaders, and stays in contact with them until the teams are split and the genin have reached his apparent level and beyond. The jounin humor him because it makes their students happy, and he seems a little pathetic worrying after them all the time. Meanwhile he can make sure that everything is going well with _them_ too, and no one is on the edge of turning missing or rogue. He enjoys it, and the Hokage has yet another source of information. It works out well.

So he knows most of the genin team leaders fairly well. He doesn't know many people that don't work with the academy, since not many of them are young enough to have been his students, but within that group he knows everyone. And they know him – or at least, the him that he presents. And he's so easy to talk to, he winds up hearing more than anybody knows. In a way, you could almost say he's a special jounin, with a focus on subtlety and information gathering.

However, he did not, before the formation of the current Team 7, know Kakashi personally. He knew him only by repute, and his reputation wasn't the best. Besides which, he was responsible for both the vengeance-driven heir to a powerful bloodline and the boy who was designed to be the jinchuuriki for Konoha's kyuubi. If ever there was risk, it was there. So he paid a little extra attention, followed them a couple times, did some investigating.

Kakashi knew soon enough. That was part of the plan. Iruka had a good excuse for his rather bumbling attempts in his relationship with Naruto, and the way the village still treated the kid. That was good, but he needed another reason, a reason for Kakashi to be near him, instead of the other way around. Not three – three was too many, but two would be enough. Slowly, and carefully, Iruka started creating for himself the role of Kakashi's unacknowledged confidant, just as he is for everybody else.

It was difficult work. Kakashi is, after all, an ex-Anbu, and very few of the other genin team leaders ever got that far. But he's been managing it, and meanwhile keeping track of both Sasuke and Naruto, and all his other duties. It's exhilarating work, tiring, but worth it. Iruka loves it.

In a couple of days, Kakashi is going to come back from a solo mission. He's rather like Sasuke, actually: repressed, cold, using his body as a machine and ignoring it whenever possible. The thing is, he's been doing it for a good fifteen years or so _longer_ than Sasuke has, and it's hurting both his mind and his body. There are things that he needs to do, but he needs to trust people to do them, and since he doesn't trust anyone, he hasn't been doing them. But, insensibly (because Iruka really is that good) he's been coming to trust him.

What Iruka doesn't know is this: when Kakashi comes back from his mission in a couple of days, he is going to see Iruka, and he's going to snap. Just a little at first, but the rest will come down quickly after that. You see, what Iruka does is part of his nature, and he at least has the Hokage to report to, but Kakashi is alone. So when he snaps, he's going to seduce Iruka, and then he's going to cling like crazy.

Not that Iruka will mind. Kakashi is gorgeous, and talented, and he's going to need something to absolutely prove to him that he's really alive and not just imaging it all, which means that Iruka is going to be on top. And Kakashi won't ever figure out exactly what's going on. He's not a spy, not like Iruka is. For all his secrets, he's pretty straight forward. It means he ends his battles quickly, but it also means that he can't stand up to longer ones. That's why he's not in Anbu any more.

And once Kakashi has started to cling, he's not going to let go. Iruka isn't going to be prepared for his sudden new responsibility, for having to support someone he never expected to need it, because he doesn't really know Kakashi all that well.

But he will.

_fin  
.: you got inside my defenses 'cause I tried to get past your own :. _


End file.
